How Brand Marketing Measurement Benefits from Life Lessons in Fitness

As marketers, we all have goals. In the beginning, we set arbitrary measures to work against, then refine our goals as we get more data. At what point do we revisit the way we measure? Columnist Chris Copeland explains.

Eighteen months ago, we launched GroupM Next. At the same time, I decided that after years of playing the part of a road warrior, I should focus a bit more on the warrior part and less on the rubber tire look the road can bring about. Since then, I've realized there's a lot brands can learn from a person's fitness journey.

I set an unofficial weight goal and began a six-day-a-week weight program with a co-worker. Over time, I became almost maniacal about my morning workouts, religiously there at six a.m. on weekdays when in town and whenever and wherever I could find a gym on the road.

My personal preference is heavy weight routines, so hotel gyms are simply not an option; I've become an expert at finding gyms with daily guest privileges in just about every city. Last week, I set a new personal best by squatting a little more than twice my new body weight.

But lifting wasn't enough. Last April, I gave up soda, a personal favorite. After consuming 32oz of "diet" drinks daily, I quit. Cold turkey. I haven't had a drop since.

But even that wasn't enough, so I started running. Some people are natural runners. Others (like myself) run out of a sense of necessity. I do not enjoy running, but I do it anyway. Of all the parts of my journey, this has been the most painful. When I started running, I measured success by completing a 5K run. Sometime last fall, I started to run sprint miles before working out, then running three to four miles on lift days, to increase my metabolism and prevent the common post-lift soreness on leg workout days.

In December, I ran a sub-seven minute mile.

Even still, that wasn't enough for me. So last fall, I got a Nike FuelBand. Once a week, I am asked what it is and what I think about it. My answer is always the same. As a proxy for achievement, it does the job. I sit in meetings, on conference calls and airplanes frequently, so having a visual reminder of my progress (or lack thereof) attached to my wrist is valuable. At one point, I went on an 88-day stretch of achieving my 3,000 point/day goal.

And then something happened: I hit the silent weight goal I'd set for myself. Ten percent of me was gone in terms of total pounds. The lifting program and supplements likely meant even more body fat had vanished, but I realized I was not sophisticated enough in what I was measuring.

I knew my top line goal had been met, but I then plateaued. At some point, despite all the lifting, better eating and running, I simply leveled off on the weight loss. That was fine, but with it came a loss of focus.

If I could sustain this, I would be both happy and surprisingly, less motivated.

I changed the game, so to speak, by shifting my focus from daily weigh-ins at the gym to quarterly body fat analyses. By understanding my percentage of body fat and composition, I could start to refine my approach. The first test was shocking; I had a mental idea of where I was and the reality was not nearly as positive. Yes, it was much better than if I had started testing at this level last year, but it showed just how much more potential for improvement existed.

As marketers, I think there's a lesson in here. We all have goals. In the beginning, we set arbitrary measures to work against, then as we get more data, we refine the goals. But at some stage, the way we measure has to be revisited. At some point, the bar you set can only change if you change what you measure at a more granular level.

I recently returned home from two weeks on the road to find a new and noticeable weight drop. As gratifying as it is, it's an effect caused by the shift in measurement. I firmly believe that without changing what I am now measuring as success, this would not have been possible.

Is your brand measuring the same things they did two, three or five years ago? Are you looking for deeper, more precise metrics, or are you satisfied with good enough at a top level?

Brand fitness, like personal fitness, is a choice, but it's one that is easy to make and hard to keep. Are you making the right choices for you and the health of your brand?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Copeland is chief executive officer of GroupM Next, the forward-looking media innovation unit of GroupM. Chris is responsible for curating and communicating insight-focused media solutions across established and emerging platforms. Leveraging his multi-year experience with emerging media companies, Chris is tasked with stewarding GroupM Next in partnership with agency leadership from GroupM's four media marketing and marketing service agencies (Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare). The focus is participating with those companies leading changes that most impact consumer media consumption, brand favorability, and purchase behavior.

Guiding the Predictive Insights, Technology, Research, and Communications teams at GroupM Next, Chris is responsible for overseeing the amplification of insights into opportunities that directly benefit the business of GroupM agencies and their clients. GroupM is the world's largest media investment management group and the media holding arm of WPP. Together, GroupM agencies represent almost $30 billion in overall North American billings (RECMA).

Chris helped guide the development of GroupM Next, which was established to deliver the best thinking and new insights from within the GroupM community. The unit also focuses on technology innovation connecting all media channels, but especially, online, social, mobile, and addressable.

Chris was selected to lead GroupM Next after nine years of leading the search marketing practice within GroupM. Among his accomplishments are the development and integration of the global search marketing offering for GroupM agencies, GroupM Search, which managed $1.3 billion in search billings globally and grew to more than 1,000 search marketing strategists serving 40 countries. In 2009, Chris created the research division of GroupM Search and developed research studies that deepened the understanding of consumer behavior across search and social media for leading brands and garnered global traction - most notably: The Influenced: Social Media, Search, and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption; The Virtuous Circle: The Role of Social Media in the Purchase Pathway;and From Intent to In-Store: Search's Role in the New Retail Shopper Profile.

Chris entered the digital industry in 1996 when he joined search marketing agency WGI (later acquired by Tempus Group). He has been with the WPP and GroupM family of companies since 2000 when, recognizing search as an emerging media channel with incredible potential for brands, WPP acquired Tempus Group and CIA, and ultimately rebranded the search marketing agency as Outrider. As senior partner and managing director of Outrider, Chris delivered on GroupM's vision for the channel, leading the organization to 500 percent growth with global presence over five years, and establishing award-winning search marketing strategies that have become industry-wide best practices. In 2002, Chris successfully implemented the integration of search into the cross-channel media planning process at MEC, creating the first search marketing practice to sit within a media communications and planning company. In 2007, he guided the business expansion of search marketing practices into all GroupM agencies. In 2009, Chris was named CEO of GroupM Search, where he was responsible for driving global search strategy for the organization, while fostering the innovative application of search as an integrated channel. In his role, Chris also provided digital strategy counsel for clients, including AT&T, Dell, Audi, Volkswagen, and more.

Chris is an active member on advisory boards at the 4A's, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and I-COM. He is a frequent speaker in global forums discussing the digital marketplace and how the space is evolving, and serves as a regular resource to national and industry press. Chris contributes editorial commentary regularly to Advertising Age, ClickZ, MediaPost, and MediaBizBloggers.com. In fall 2013, Chris was honored as an inductee into the ClickZ Digital Hall of Fame.

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